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The family went swimming today, which was exhausting as Hell and I probably only spent about five minutes in the pool. But some how the misery of a family swim session was so nostalgic that every part of it was perversely enjoyable.
Just getting the stuff together and getting the kids in the car was exercise enough for me, but then you have to actually go to the pool and it gets worse.
We were trying out a different and it turns out much swankier branch of our gym in Hatfield, so we were unfamiliar with the lay out, but also had to wait about five minutes, with people queuing behind us, because our cards wouldn’t work to let us in. Had I been on reception I might just have opened the gates for us, but the woman there did a fine job of sticking to the rules and even when we were all through spent another three minutes making me put Ernie’s card against the scanner until it finally worked.
We were delighted to see that there was family changing and initially that seemed like a massive boon. But each family changing room had its own little shower and had been used anyway by lots of previous wet families and the floors were soaking. Not so bad as we got changed into our stuff, but later I had the joy of trying to dress a toddler whilst trying to avoid the floor and the Proustian moment of putting back on my own damp socks and remembering all the swimming trips of the distant past where I or my parents had had to do the same for me.
The pools were nice and not too full, but a little bit chilly and Ernie was not happy about it. Well he was OK for about 30 seconds in the shallow and warmer child pool,but he slipped under the water and then it was tears from them on, combined with shivers when we tried the larger pool. Persistence was futile and within five minutes I had decided that I would take Ernie back to the cafe and let Catie and Phoebe have some fun swim time.
But getting Ernie washed and dressed on my own, then somewhere safe and dry whilst I got dressed was like being in a very boring version of the Crystal Maze where they make you be nude and give you ten minutes for each task and don’t have the fun blowy thing with the gold bits of paper in it at the end. Note to self - pitch this to the telly.
Minutes after we'd gone in the cubicle I heard a raised woman's voice telling off a child and a repsonse from the kid that sounded so exactly like Catie and Phoebe that I nearly opened the door naked to tell them where I was (I had the bag with their clothes in it so didn't want them standing freezing in the changing room). But then I heard no more and when I asked Catie she said they'd been in the pool all the time. Every single family is EXACTLY THE SAME.
My mind was full of plasters floating in those little pools of water you used to have to walk through (but mainly jumped over) to stop the spread of veruccas or foot AIDS or whatever it was for. And I was enjoying the memories of shivering in sodden cubicles with a shrunken willy (to be fair that just happened last week though. And I was on a bus). This experience was a right of passage. Let’s go swimming, it will be the most fun in the world. Oh no, it’s totally awful from start to finish. Welcome to life. Hope you learned your lesson.
Then I had to chase my son round the cafe and the soft play whilst I waited for the less sad half of my family to emerge from their afternoon of glorious fun. It was a brilliant Hell. My son is an idiot with no sense of perspective or danger, but even when he is crying in my face I love him more than I can say and it’s just terrific to be with him. There was no vending machine at the pool, so it couldn’t count as full on throw-back but I bought us both a snack from the cafe. Ernie sucked down his pouch as I was paying and then moaned until I gave him my protein snack bar and he ate most of that too.
Why do I love him? He just uses me.
To complete the experience my wife and I managed to bicker about directions as we drove towards the supermarket and then did a quick shop with surprising efficiency and good grace. Every one of us was properly knackered by the time we got home. The kids have never gone to sleep so easily.
I would happily have died.
It was somehow the perfect afternoon.
Latest newsletter with good news about most RHLSTP guests, but bad news about Richard E Grant episode.
And
stone clearing chapter 26 will hopefully finally put to bed all those rumours about my wish to be rimmed by multiple labradors.
